Living After Death
by QueenoftheSlayers
Summary: How do you love after you lose someone you loved leaves you, making you feel alone, even when you have friends that care for you. I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING... besides OC's. Thank you.
1. Gone

Sitting in the park used to be so calming, but not any more, not after that day. Not after I got that phone call from her mother. I was sitting with my new friends after the move, after my problems with the move and my parents.

"Xander put me down this instant!"

"Come on Cassandra, you know you like this!" cried Nick over my screaming.

"Xander put her down before I have Vida rearrange your limbs."

"Madison," he said as he put me down on the ground, "you ruin all my fun."

I stood proud once he put me down but when I tried to walk over to my seat on the picnic bench I wobbled being dizzy from the spinning. Everyone laughed; I shot Xander a dirty look before going over to my phone that was ringing.

"Do you guys mind if I take this," I said with dread in my voice when I saw the number on my caller ID.

"No," Vida said.

I grabbed my phone, opened it, and answered as I turned away from them,

"What happened? Is she okay… what… no… no I haven't been home yet… when did she do it… when is the… I can leave tomorrow… she did what before… a ticket and room… a letter… no I haven't been home all day… I am so sorry Mrs. Green…yeah, see you tomorrow night…"

"What happened," Chip asked.

"Cassie…" Xander said as he walked around me to look into my face. When he saw me his face changed, I saw worry and concern in his eyes. "What was that about?"

"Umm… I… she… I have to go home know… I have to pack… I have to leave…"

I turned from them and walked to my car. I didn't grab my things but I didn't care. I had to get home. Get out of here. Get to her. Those were the only two thoughts that rang through my head, _get out of here and get to her… her body… her dead body._


	2. Broken Glass

I don't know who grabbed my stuff from the bench, I don't remember much from the past few days. I remember going home and finding two letters from Rose in the mail. One containing a letter explaining why and one holding 6 two-way train tickets home and a reservation letter to two rooms at a hotel in town. I don't remember the trip, I don't remember Xander holding me as I sat silently though the funeral, and I still don't remember it ever hurting as much in my life then it did now.

As soon as we had gotten home my parents picked me up and took me home. I stayed in my room for days. They came to see me but my parent said that I wouldn't come out.

I did see them about a week later. My parents asked them to come and talk to me because I wasn't talking to them. I didn't talk to them but they seemed to know that I hadn't been sleeping well, that I hadn't eaten much and they saw that I was staring at a picture across the room. It was of her and as much as I wanted to look away I couldn't. She was haunting me, not letting me go, but it didn't make since because she had chosen to leave.

A few days my parents both my parent had to go to work again but they didn't want me alone so they got my friends to come over. First Madison, then Chip, next Vida, next Nick, then Xander. He stayed the longest and he was the one that witnessed my finally breaking down.

We were sitting in my room and I of course was staring at her picture across the room. I stood abruptly and walked over to the picture. I looked at it for a few seconds before I grabbed it and threw it at the wall above my bed and screamed.

"I hate you! Why did you leave me all alone?"

Xander barely had time to move out of the flying pictures way. He then dove over to me as I fell down on my knees. "Cassandra!"

I don't know how long I cried but I woke up to arms holding me. I was sleeping in the leaving room. That confused me for about half a minute before I remembered that I had broken glass and ceramic all over my bed. She had made me that picture frame and I destroyed it yesterday after noon.

I looked up and saw the wall clock and read that it was two in the morning. I got out of the arms imprisoning me and saw that they belonged to Xander.

_He stayed. My parents let him stay. Why would he want to stay? _I thought as I leaned down and kissed his forehead and whispered, "thank you" before going to the bathroom to shower and cry.

After I was done I walked out in a towel and saw that Xander was sitting up staring at me.

"Sorry," I said, "I didn't want to wake you up. You looked so comfy I didn't want to disturb you."

He acted like I didn't say anything as he asked his question.

"Did you sleep well?" What was that behind his eyes, that emotion was hard to read from him.

"Fine, Xander, what is wrong?

"I'm having trouble looking just at your face, go put on some clothes."

I had forgotten that I was just wearing a towel.

"Xander," I said as my voice cracked, "I don't think that I can go in there. Not after what happened."

He walked over to me and pulled me into a hug.

Then he gently brought me into my room and I saw that he had cleaned the bed. He placed me down and turned to walk away but I grabbed his hand and said, "Xander, please stay?"

"Not until you put on clothes, Cassandra. I don't want to do anything with you… tonight," he added after a look fell over my face. "Look, Cassandra, I would love to have sex with you, I have wanted to for months after we started dating but I wont, not when you are having mental break downs because I don't want to hurt you physically or mentally more then you already are."

"Xander, I want you though. Please don't leave the room."

"No you don't not tonight. Please change, I'll stay in the room but I am going to be turned around."

"Fine," I said as he turned and I dropped my towel and grabbed a black tank top, underwear and a pair of black yoga pants. "Changed."

He turned around slowly to make sure that I wasn't lying and that I had clothes on.

"Get in the bed," Xander said as he turned around all the way and walked to my bed and climbed in under the covers and pulled me into his chest and covered us before he drifted of to sleep and then slowly after him I drifted of to sleep suddenly wishing that he wasn't there with his arms around me.


	3. Pushes and Pulls

02:36

Weeks passed which then turned into months. I had pushed them all away… in my own way I pushed them away, in a way that they didn't realize. They hadn't known me before so they had no clue how I put my brick wall back so that I couldn't be touched. That I wouldn't be able to feel anything because I didn't want to feel it anymore. I mean if she didn't have to feel it anymore then why should I have too.

Then after hiding it so well, Xander saw it. He knew that I was hiding something and told the others. Then they started asking their questions again.

Then I didn't show up for to meet them after school or show up to visit them at their work. But when they went looking for me they couldn't find me. I heard that they went to my house looking for me. My parents were getting worried and scared and tried to put me into therapy again but that didn't work. I shut up. I stopped talking. Everyone took it hard.

They all talked about me when they thought that I couldn't hear them. I heard them saying that they thought that I got better, that I was getting better. They wanted to know what changed. Xander told them what had happened again… but this time he didn't leave out me wanting to have sex.

"I should have been able to tell that she was distance the next morning. I just thought that it was because she was upset about the picture frame and the picture and her death but… why couldn't I see it."

They tried to reassure him. It worked for a while, but… he started spending more time with me. He was trying to get close to me. I didn't understand his plan but the others did and they were not trying to stop him.

Then it happened. I found out their secret and plan.

Sorcerers and magic to heal my heart and soul. By bringing in a ghost.


	4. Lies and Truths

A ghost was not what I wanted. I did want to see her but they told me their secret by bringing me to their secret place they called Rootcore. It was a tree. A giant hollowed out tree.

Then I started screaming.

"You lied to me, you never told me you about magic! After all the times that I told you that I was busy with my coven. Yet you never thought about telling me that you had magic, that you had a coven!"

"You knew that we worked with fairies and monsters and other magical creatures… did you not think that was odd Cassie?"

"I grew up in Angel grove. We had monsters straight for 6 years. The only odd part was getting used to the fact that they were good here and not evil trying to kill us all the time. Why didn't you tell me?"

"We thought you knew already. Everyone else knew. Posters were up about us being the rangers!"

I walked away after that… or I tried to walk away but they had already summand her spirit and I froze in my spot.

"How…. How did you get here?" I turned to look at the ghost of Rose. But she couldn't be a ghost, she was almost solid, she looked real, but when I tried to hug her I still went through her. Then I ran out the door into forest with the six of them following me, yelling my name.


	5. Forgiven

I ran and ran, past trees and Fairy's, but was cut off by the five of them when they cam out of the trees.

"No… please… no… just let me go, I don't want to talk to any of you."

"We need to talk Cassie, I need to tell you why I did what I did, and we you shouldn't hate me any more, that I love you still and that you should still love me."

"Go."

"Cassie," Xander started to criticize me but Rose stopped him.

"Xander, she means for me to start."

"Oh."

"Go, now"

"Okay, Cassie, I know that nothing is going to change what I did, the pain that I brought to you. But it was the only way that I saw myself ever going to get better, to get away.

I tied to call but every time that I dialed your number, I couldn't force myself to dial the number. You had gotten away and I was scared that I would bring you back and I couldn't do that to you, not after everything. Your life is more important to me then mine was to me. And I know that yes you valued my life more then you did your own at times but I could drag you back just for me so…"

"YOU LEFT ME ALONE AFTER I PROMISED… PROMISED TO NEVER TRY TO KILL MYSELF AGAIN!!!! TO NEVER CUT MY SELF AGAIN!!!!!! And you left… I am not strong enough to live with out you, you know that."

"Wrong, you are strong enough. Xander and Madison and Vida and Chip and Nick make you stronger then I ever did. You kept your promise and I kept mine, that I would keep you safe for the evil of the world, of your brother and my brother. I never promised that I would stay here, I never promised that I wouldn't take my own life.

I did it to make sure that they thought we were both dead and then they wouldn't come after you. They both knew that if one of us died that the other would follow, or that it was once like that. I knew that you wouldn't follow because you promise me that you wouldn't."

"They were going to come after us, after me, again. Why?"

"Because to them we are what they hate, some one that knows what they are or what they were, trust me they will never find you, nor will they ever be found. Your safe, I just had to die to make sure that it would be that way, safe for you to live your life the way that you always wanted."

I just stared at her and then looked at the others knowing and understanding the shocked and confused looks on their faces, knowing that after she was gone that we would have to talk about my past more then we have, that I would have a lot to explain.

"They promised me a few more hours before I have to go back. Time for us to talk and to sit together. You don't hate me do you Cass?"

I looked back to her and smiled before I walked back to her and said, "never could I hate you," before we walked off to talk and spend the last few hours together before she had to leave again.


	6. Moving On

It had been days since Rose and I had talked. She has been gone for a while but that was that important to me any more. I understood, though the pain was still hard and the choice was still playing in my head on whether or not I should join her, I was surviving and my friends knew that it was going to be a while for most of the emotional scars to heal and that not all of them were going to heal.

I told them all about what I had gone through with my abusive brother and her abusive brother and what I had been though before and after I met her. I also told them about how I tried to kill myself and I showed them most of my scars, I still told them that I had a few more but they were not up for seeing, because as I told them, they meant more to me than a lot of things because they were the ones that she made on me because I walked in on her about to do them and made her do them on my thighs and stomach, and they were not light.

A few months had gone by and I was healing and Xander and I had gotten much closer, including having physical and mental and emotional.

I was moving on and was in the right place to do it.

My parents moved back to Angel Grove but I didn't want to and with the fact that I was turning 18 in a few weeks, I made my mother and father allow me to stay with Madison and Vida and their family.

Xander kept me close, like he thought that I was going to disappear or something but for the first time I didn't care and I just enjoyed my self and the life that I was given because Rose made a choice, one that I didn't think that I could have ever made.

She let me live and she let me love again, with out feeling empty and alone.

And I knew that I was never alone. She was with me.

I was living after death, and I knew that I was going to succeed too.


End file.
